Plan A “Slumber Party” With Your Kids

My 4-year old is always asking me to “hang out” and sleep with him in his bed. I know he just likes the extra attention, but the last thing I wanted to do is make it a habit of mommy sleeping in his bed, so I came up with this idea to plan our own little Mommy & Zayden “slumber party”. Yes I know the idea is a little bit wacky – but it actually was a lot of fun!

A Mommy & Child slumber party is a really great activity for the little kids – especially since they are too young to actually sleep over by themselves at a friends house. I am sure almost all of us have been to a slumber party when we were growing up. Basically what you do at a slumber party is sleep over at your friend’s house, hang out, eat lots of junk food, play games, tell stories and bond. The only difference between your normal slumber party and a this slumber party is that it is “mommy” instead of “friends”.

There is no exact formula for planning the perfect Mommy & Child slumber party. It’s just a great way to give your kid some one-on-one attention. It doesn’t take much time or effort to plan. Here are some ideas on what you can do:

(1) Get excited. Start hyping up the slumber party and how much fun it’s going to be. Zayden had never heard of a slumber party, but after I filled him in on the details he got really excited. All week long he talked about the slumber party and all the fun things we were planning to do.

(2) Make it a special event. Mark the date on the calendar. Then count down the days as the “party” gets closer. I made it a point to tell my husband in front of Zayden that I could not eat dinner with him because we were having a slumber party. This was one week before the actual event.

(3) Decide on the location for the event. The living room, master bedroom, your child’s room, etc. Make sure you set up the room in advance for all the party (move furniture, set out the sleeping bags, etc.). Zayden decided he wanted to the slumber party in his room – this was the party headquarters. We did leave the room a couple times to go to the kitchen to get more snacks, but aside from that we were in the room.

(4) Try to make it as realistic as possible. We took out the sleeping bags from storage and dimmed the lights. All the games, snacking and storytelling were done with a flashlight.

(5) Have slumber party snacks. Simple snacks will do. If you haven’t already eaten dinner, order pizza and eat it during the slumber party. Have popcorn, desserts, chips and other junk food that you would not normally eat at night in bed.

(6) Tell some stories. You can either makeup your own stories or read some books. But whatever you do, use a flashlight to tell the story – it makes it more fun and more like a real slumber party.

(7) Play some games. Decide what games you and your child like to play together. It can be pictionary, charades, cards – anything will do, as long as you play together. We decided to play our own version of “Guess What I Am” – we put the character cards on our face and gave each other clues.

(8)Share some secrets. You can tell your child actual silly secrets or made up ones. This is just a time to share. Telling secrets was Zayden’s idea. Basically to him secrets meant that we whispered and told each other some made-up spooky stories.

(9) Sleeping Time. Decide how long your slumber party will last. 1 to 2 hours is usually more than enough time, especially for the little kids. Our party lasted a little over an hour (which is how long I had anticipated); this was one hour past Zayden’s bedtime and I knew he would be ready to sleep. As soon as the “party” was over, I removed the sleeping bag, games and food from his room. Then it was bedtime as usual.

SuperMommys Thoughts: Even though I spend all day with my kids, sometimes I feel the “quality” time is lacking. Having a slumber party with Zayden was a great way for him to feel “special” and have some alone time with me. Both of us had a great time at our little party. Before I know it my boys will be all grown up and will think it is “uncool” to hang out with their mommy – so I need to enjoy all the time we have now. The party was really easy to organize and we will definitely be having another one in the near future.